


The Tolstoy Affair

by JeanGraham



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-18 17:34:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21530689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanGraham/pseuds/JeanGraham
Summary: A sequel to "Code Book Affair." Thrush is determined to crack the code.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	The Tolstoy Affair

The Tolstoy Affair 

* * *

A sequel to "The Code Book Affair," which you can find here: <https://archiveofourown.org/works/20399425>

  
by Jean Graham

Early fall in New York City was, as seasons went, a negligible time  
of year. Here in the east forties, there were no trees to convey  
the change of season, and brown smog obscured the autumn sky.  
Marla Quinn, a library book tucked comfortably under her arm, tried  
to ignore the gloomy setting while she made her way toward Del  
Floria's Tailor Shop. As she started down the concrete steps  
between the twin iron railings, Illya Kuryakin emerged from the  
tailor shop to meet her half way across the landing. "Ah, Marla,"  
he said pleasantly. "I was just going out for a bit of lunch.  
Would you care to join me?"

"Thanks, but I've already had mine."

The Russian nodded resignedly, and started on up the steps.

"Illya--" When he turned back, Marla was holding out the library  
book, which had Cyrillic lettering across its leather cover. "You  
know, I only half-believed you when you said you'd send the library  
a copy of _War and Peace_ in the original Russian."

"Oh. So it did arrive." Kuryakin took the book from her and  
thumbed through it appreciatively. "There's nothing like an  
original for gaining a true appreciation of a classic. How are you  
coming with the Russian lessons?"

"You want an honest answer?" Marla took the book back. "I'm  
struggling. And it'll be a long while before I'm ready for this.  
I don't suppose you'd be available for a little tutoring? I think  
I'll be old and gray before I'll ever get the hang of your verb  
conjugations."

The phantom of a smile curled one corner of Illya's mouth. "I  
might be persuaded. On one condition." He searched the pocket of  
his suit briefly and came up with two small green rectangles.  
"Forbes in Section 3 had a theatre date for this evening. This  
morning Mr. Waverly sent him to Lisbon. So..."

Peering more closely at the tickets, Marla read the play title.  
"'Run For Your Wife'?"

Illya shrugged. "It's supposed to be amusing."

"Oh," Marla said contemplatively. "Well, I get off at 5 today.  
Pick me up at 6?"

"Promptly."

When they parted company on Del Floria's doorstep, neither of them  
noticed the disreputable-looking fellow in the dark glasses  
loitering just across the street. Nor did they see him pull a box-  
like device from his pocket and speak into it softly.

Marla lingered a while outside the tailor shop door, perusing the  
nearly indecipherable text of War and Peace while Illya Kuryakin  
disappeared into the press of the midday New York City street  
crowd. She had, she decided, checked the book out primarily as a  
challenge to her linguistic learning abilities. But of course,  
that hadn't been the only reason. _War and Peace_ had had a much  
more personal significance ever since Illya had used a previous  
copy (that one an English translation) as a phony code book to  
decoy some thoroughly unsavory people away from her. Lost in a  
fond recollection of that incident, Marla paid no attention to the  
car that had pulled up to Del Floria's curb and left its powerful  
engine running. A gloved hand came out of seemingly nowhere to  
snatch the book from Marla's hands. She managed a startled yelp  
before one of the leather gloves was clamped over her mouth, and  
she found herself being hauled up the steps and wrestled into the  
back of an incredibly long white limousine. By the time her unseen  
attacker with the foul-tasting gloves had let go of her, it was too  
late to scream. The door of the enormous car had _thunked_ shut and  
blackout panels had instantly sealed the rear windows. With an  
incongruous squeal of tires, the limo lurched into motion.

Marla turned to see a greying, overdressed woman seated across the  
wide expanse of velveteen upholstery, the copy of _War and Peace_  
open in her hands. "Interesting lunch hour reading you have here,  
my dear. I'd venture to say not one in a thousand of New York's  
citizenry could read it. That makes you somewhat special, doesn't  
it?"

Ignoring her for the moment, Marla pounced on the inside door  
handle only to find that it refused to budge.

"None of that now," the plump woman clucked. "Be a co-operative  
little dear and we won't have to damage you too awfully much." She  
plucked a microphone from a bank of controls in the back of the  
seat before her. The blackout panels had fallen between the seats  
as well, and prevented any sight of the rest of the car. "Take us  
out of the city, Edward," she said into the mike. "Best possible  
speed."

  
* * *

  
Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin hadn't gone very far down the crowded  
street when, over the city roar, he'd heard what sounded like a cry  
for help. He spun to look back toward Del Floria's, and spotted a  
man in sunglasses forcing Marla into a white limousine. By reflex,  
the U.N.C.L.E. Special appeared from the shoulder holster under his  
coat. Several people on the sidewalk veered away from him in  
sudden terror: Illya ignored them and concentrated on closing the  
one hundred yard gap between himself and the limo in time to do  
something -- anything.

He fired at it twice while still on the run, aiming at the tires.  
But just as though it were somehow impervious to bullets, the  
behemoth car screamed away from the curb and sped down 40th away  
from him, dodging between two lanes of traffic and evoking angry  
horn blasts as it went. Illya slowed to a stop and glared after  
it, oblivious to the flurry of attention his display had created on  
the street. Disgusted, he tucked the Special away and pulled out  
his communicator pen. "Emergency Channel L," he said to it.  
"Section 2, Number 2. I need a ground unit with aerial backup -- in  
a hurry."

  
* * *

  
Marla stared across at her rather exotic kidnapper and finally  
found her voice. "Who are you? What do you think you're doing?  
Let me out of here!"

"In answer to the first question, we are Thrush. But then, surely  
you already knew that." Marla hadn't, but kept quiet while the  
woman went on. "I am Kara de Marque, the newest head of the New  
York satrapy. And we wish to know what coded information is  
contained in this book. You are going to tell us."

"Coded...?" Marla groaned. "Oh no. Not you, too! Look, there's  
nothing in that book but Leo Tolstoy. Honest!"

"Oh, come now. We know you are an U.N.C.L.E. courier, and that you  
used this novel as a code book once before."

"I did not! And I'm not a courier, I'm only a--"

"Please, let's dispense with useless denials, shall we? There's  
really no reason why we can't be perfectly civilized about this  
whole affair. Here. I'll show you." Kara de Marque touched an  
unseen control and the back of the seat responded by instantly  
transforming itself into a fully-stocked wet bar replete with  
glasses, a mini-refrigerator and a built-in telephone. Marla  
smirked at the showy display. "That's cute," she said. "Is there  
a swimming pool tucked away in the trunk?"

"Thrush rewards its employees very well," de Marque said, and  
poured herself a glass of champagne without spilling a drop. "If  
you tell us what we want to know, perhaps we'll add you to the  
payroll."

"No thanks," Marla told her. "The pay scale may be wonderful, but  
I have it on excellent authority that the pension plan stinks."

The joke failed to evince any humor in the aging female Thrush  
agent. She glared at Marla the way a lioness might look at a plump  
gazelle, downed the champagne, and replaced the glass with a  
resounding _clank._ "Well," she said resignedly. "So much for being  
civil." Another hidden control activated a panel directly in front  
of Marla -- a smaller one this time that slid open to reveal a row  
of clear plastic tubes. From one of them, a cloud of thick bluish  
gas launched itself at Marla, who ducked too late to avoid inhaling  
the acrid fumes. She fell back into the plush seat, possessed of  
an immediate and overwhelming sense of euphoria. Suddenly the  
limo, Kara de Marque and the entire hierarchy of Thrush all seemed  
no more threatening than a hangnail.

"A marvelous thing, science," she heard de Marque's voice say,  
somehow further away than she'd been a moment ago. "It's allowed  
us to do away with all those ghastly needles and bothersome liquid  
serums. Now tell me, what sort of code is U.N.C.L.E. using with  
this book?"

"Code," Marla murmured sleepily. "Code? There isn't--" Another of  
the tubes spewed a jet of white smoke, and at once a smile spread  
across Marla's face. She hadn't felt this good since that first  
taste of forbidden sherry back in high school.

"Let us try one more time," the friendly voice said. "What  
messages were you carrying for U.N.C.L.E. in this book?"

 _Messages,_ Marla thought furiously. _The lady wants messages._  
_Couldn't bear to disappoint her; she's been so nice and all..._  
_There must be some messages somewhere I can dredge up..._

"Here is the code book," the voice said, and Marla felt something  
solid and rectangular pressed into her hands. "You will read me  
the messages. Now."

Squinting at the first page of the novel, Marla felt a headache  
coming on. Was she supposed to be able to read this? The letters  
were all funny. Must be the code they were talking about. No,  
that wasn't it. She remembered now. She was learning how to read  
it, but the lessons hadn't gone very far yet...

 _"Read,"_ the voice urged.

Marla turned several pages, hunting in vain for a phrase she could  
sound out, perhaps even translate. But it was useless. The  
strange-looking letters kept running together and swimming up the  
page. "It says the Rome office is planning a new expansion  
operation," she said, creating the message out of whole cloth and  
gratified that it instantly seemed to please de Marque. "There are  
currently four U.N.C.L.E. operatives under cover in the Vatican,  
preparing for a possible special clerical branch that will operate  
via--"

"Yes yes," de Marque interrupted. "What else?"

"Pirates," Marla said, yawning expansively.

"Pi what? What are you talking about?"

Marla suppressed a giggle. "Pirates. You know -- yo ho, yo ho?  
There are plans for a special surveillance team from the Anaheim  
division to monitor suspected subversive activity being carried out  
aboard boats on a popular Disneyland ride." This really was  
becoming inspired, Marla thought, noting that de Marque had leaned  
over to peer at her with painted eyebrows knit close together.  
"Then there's Paris," Marla continued, turning pages for effect.  
"The new communications center under the Arch de Triumph..."

* * *

  
The limousine had forsaken the inner city for the Truman expressway  
and headed east into a suburban area of Nassau County. Illya  
Kuryakin, driving the specially-equipped U.N.C.L.E. car, kept a  
discreet distance behind, biding his time until the traffic thinned  
enough to use the car's special defenses against the limo. A  
familiar whistle sounded from his coat pocket. When he'd opened  
the communicator's frequency, a voice said, "Open Channel D."

"Napoleon? Where are you?"

"Flying the air support you asked for. I'm following your homing  
beacon, about a mile behind you."

"Well stay out of sight. I wouldn't want them to spot us --  
prematurely."

"They who?"

"I'm not sure yet."

Exasperation tinged Solo's voice. "You called out mobile and air  
units to follow a limo and you don't even know who's driving it?"

"No, but whoever they are, they have Marla Quinn, not to mention a  
rare first edition of _War and Peace."_

"Oh," Solo said, as if that answered everything. "Well have you  
had any clear shots?"

"Not until now. They're heading into a residential sector. I  
should be able to hit them with one of the smaller rockets. Hold  
on."

The big white car had left the expressway and made its way down a  
side road into an area of 1950s style tract housing. When the last  
of the intervening traffic had cleared, Illya carefully aimed the  
U.N.C.L.E. car's special rocket launchers at the limo's tires,  
double-checked the controls, and fired. The tiny missile that  
streaked toward the lumbering white car in response should by all  
rights have stopped it dead. But like the bullets he'd fired at it  
in front of Del Floria's, the rocket seemed to have no effect at  
all. The limousine slowed, then shot off down the narrow street to  
scream around the nearest corner, burning rubber as it went.

Illya disgustedly threw the U.N.C.L.E. car into a higher gear and  
went after it, taking the corner with minimal tire squeals. A  
voice from the pen in his pocket was politely inquiring as to what  
the hell had happened. "You can come on up," Illya said to it  
without taking his hands from the wheel. "Either I missed, which  
is unlikely, or this gunboat has armor-plated tires. In any case,  
they know we're onto them -- and they're making a run for it."

  
"I'll be right there." The frequency clicked off, but Illya didn't  
bother to close his end. He was too busy holding onto the wheel  
while he careened around another corner behind the fleeing  
limousine.

The noise of the U.N.C.L.E. helicopter had only just become audible  
overhead when the limo streaked down a side street and screeched to  
a stop before the wood-and-metal barrier of a dead end. Illya  
braked and skidded to a halt several yards away. He'd pulled his  
Special from its holster and was about to get out of the car when  
abruptly, the limo backed up, shifted, and...

Illya didn't wait for what he knew was coming. He hit the  
launching controls and sent a missile point blank into the oncoming  
limo's radiator. Smoke poured from the impact point, but the big  
car kept on coming straight at him. While he struggled to shift  
gears and turn, more rocket fire rained down on the limo from above  
\-- Solo firing from the copter. But again, the only effect was a  
profusion of white smoke.

There wasn't enough time to run. It was all Illya could do to  
throw the U.N.C.L.E. car into reverse and floor the accelerator.  
With a screech and a bone-jarring lurch, the little car shot  
backward bare seconds before the limo roared through the space it  
had just occupied and vanished around the corner, trailing smoke.  
The U.N.C.L.E. helicopter streaked after it.

Struggling again with the shift lever, Illya had a fleeting moment  
to realize he'd backed over a curb and onto somebody's lawn. Heads  
were peeking furtively out of doors and windows up and down the  
block. Oh well, there'd be time to apologize to the citizens  
later. Right now, they had to stop that limousine.

"You're right, Illya," Solo's voice said from his pocket as he  
maneuvered the car back onto the street. "It is armored. Any idea  
yet who it is we're shooting at?"

"In a vague sort of way, yes. I got a good look at the license  
plate a minute ago."

"The lic--?" There was a pause while Solo apparently fished out a  
pair of binoculars and discovered that the vanity plates on the  
limousine were smugly engraved with the letters THRUSH. "Subtle,  
aren't they?"

"Like the proverbial ton of bricks. Now how do you propose we stop  
them?"

"Leave it to me," Solo said. "I have a new gadget to try out."

Illya rounded a corner and came back within sight of their prey.  
It was speeding down a long, wide street with the helicopter in hot  
pursuit, almost on top of it. As Illya watched, something vaguely  
resembling nylon netting sprayed from the copter's bow and formed  
a greenish patch on the street ahead of the limo. The stuff seemed  
to grow tentacles, and when the speeding car ran into it...

The scream of tires brought more heads to more windows. Doors  
opened. Police sirens were already howling in the background. The  
white limousine, still steaming, sat crooked in the middle of the  
street with heavy threads of green netting entangled in its front  
axle. Illya, noting that Solo was landing the copter in the street  
beyond, had started out of the U.N.C.L.E. car when suddenly the  
limo's front door shot open. Instinctively, Kuryakin ducked.  
Bullets whined off the car and pavement next to him. A figure in  
black chauffeur's uniform darted across the street and between the  
houses, firing as it went. Heads ducked from the windows and  
doors. Somebody screamed. Illya hurriedly slapped a new clip into  
his Special and headed after the chauffeur, but he hadn't gone far  
when more gunfire forced him to take cover behind a scanty lawn  
shrub. Peeking around the brown leaves, he took aim at the shadows  
between the houses, fired, and was rewarded with a loud groan and  
the _whump_ of a falling body. The Thrush chauffeur had just  
contracted for a two-hour nap.

Another sleeping figure -- this one a middle-aged woman with  
atrocious taste in clothes -- was laid out on the pavement when  
Illya made his way back to the crippled limousine. Napoleon Solo,  
the U.N.C.L.E. helicopter still winding down behind him, was  
bolstering his Special and leaning into the back of the big car.  
He came up again with the limp form of Marla Quinn cradled in his  
arms.

Ignoring the gathering crowd of gaping residents and the scream of  
the arriving police sirens, Illya put his own gun away and walked  
toward them. "Is she all right?"

Before Solo could answer, Marla stirred in his arms and muttered  
something only semi-coherent about spying on Thrush headquarters  
with vials of electronically bugged breath mint sprays. Solo gave  
Illya a quizzical look, then shook his head, rightfully dismissing  
the comment as the drug-induced nonsense that it was.

Sirens warbled to a halt and car doors slammed behind them.  
Napoleon Solo handed his drowsy burden across to Illya. "Mr.  
Kuryakin," he said formally, "I believe this particular package is  
yours? Oh -- and this..." He produced the Russian copy of _War and_  
_Peace_ from somewhere and tucked that neatly into Marla's folded  
arms. She hugged it and dreamily murmured Illya's name. That  
evoked a grin from Solo, but the icy look in his partner's blue  
eyes defied him to say anything.

"Marla..." Illya shook her gently. "Wake up. We have a theatre  
date tonight, remember?"

"Charming," Solo quipped, unable to resist making some comment.  
"She'll probably sleep through at least the second act."

Illya shot him a withering look, turned, and carried Marla off  
toward the waiting U.N.C.L.E. car.

Solo watched them go with a bemused smile that faded only when a  
beefy hand clamped itself to his shoulder and he turned to stare  
into the collar button of a very large (and very disgruntled) New  
York policeman. "Awright, buddy. You the guy responsible for this  
mess here?"

"Well, ah... No, not exactly. You see, uh..." Solo squirmed free  
of the big man's grip and went frantically hunting through suit  
pockets for his ID card, all the while side-stepping back toward  
the idling helicopter. The cop followed, close on his heels.  
"I've got a card here someplace..." Solo went on searching  
pockets. "Tell you what, officer. Let me tell you about my  
uncle..."

The End

  
See all of my fanfic and links to my pro fiction at <http://jeangraham.20m.com.>


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